by Colin Kapp
‘Are you going to let them get away with it?’
‘Of course not. But it’ll take a full council session to settle the issue. I’m afraid I’ll have to return there to get the matter straight. Do you think you can contain things until I get back?’
‘I’ll try, but I’ve no jurisdiction over Hardun in the face of that directive. And if he thinks you’re out to stop him, he’s likely to move fast.’
‘Then try pretending to work with him for a while. It might just be that he’ll actually do the job for you—and at a fraction of the price. Though I fear that even our friend Alek may not find the project as easy as he thinks.’
‘Can you explain that to me?’
‘I mean the Imaiz himself is under no doubts about Hardun or his infernal space machine.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘My dear Ren, what do you think Zinder and I talked about while we were waiting to register her bond? She gave me Dion’s ultimatum—either I remove Hardun and the battle cruiser or Dion-daizan will do the job himself. Until now I’ve had reservations. But from what you’ve just told me I can see the justification. I’ll set out to have Hardun and his ship removed—but don’t feel surprised if somebody does the job for me.’
‘I’ve told Catuul to go ahead with his plan to cause disruption of Dion-daizan’s estate-management policies. That will at least give me a lever I can use to slow Hardun down. But it will be difficult to stop him if he does want to try a decisive strike of his own.’
‘Then play it carefully, Tito. Take advantage of his successes and don’t become implicated in his failures. That way you stay on top and the name of the Company stays clean.’
‘You’ve just expressed a philosophy,’ said Ren, ‘that makes me appreciate why you have so much influence in the Free Trade Council. You never lose, do you?’
‘I can’t afford to lose,’ said Magno Vestevaal seriously. ‘And believe me, I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve the rest of the council haven’t even thought of yet. If all goes well at the council meeting, I’ll probably go on to Terra before returning here. I’ve been developing a few thoughts of my own about how to deal with the Imaiz—and if I can get acceptance of my ideas on Terra I can assure you that Alek Hardun won’t be rated as any serious sort of competition.’
ELEVEN
Following through on the next part of his campaign to seek influence with the Anharitte nobility, Ren had dispatched a message to Krist Di Rode requesting an audience the following morning. The reply was favorable. Before he retired, however, Ren took advantage of the caution offered by Di Irons—he posted a guard in his chambers lest the Imaiz should feel inclined to take the initiative. An attempted assassination did not seem likely, but Ren had been an agent long enough to learn that warnings from an indigenous source were better not disregarded. Fortunately the night passed without incident and, at the appointed hour the next day, Ren traveled to the most eastern point of Firsthill and presented himself at Castle Di Rode.
The contrasts between this establishment and that of Di Guaard made him realize what a fortune Di Guaard must spend on useless defence projects. Di Rode was a prodigious spender, but his considerable income from spaceport revenues had not been wasted. Castle Di Rode was bathed in an atmosphere of opulence and splendor.
Though the castle was slightly smaller than that of Di Guaard, it differed in none of its essential features except that the walls and mural towers of Di Rode displayed none of the former’s austerity of outline. Here the masonry was fully overgrown with a magnificent wealth of copper-burnished creeping vines, which garnished the old stone like an overlay of finely wrought metal. Expenditure on the guard was nominal, and mainly slaves and serving-men in splendid costumes tended the gatehouses and the trim gardens.
Everywhere Ren sensed the hand of a connoisseur of gracious living, not the least extravagance being the maintenance of the gardens and the beautiful decoration of the halls. Di Rode was obviously an intellectual and an artist, possessed of an unerring sense of the overall unity of his establishment as an aesthetic whole. The numerous slaves were well tended and nourished and probably chosen for their clean, straight limbs and physical fitness. In the whole castle he discerned not one slave whose back bore the telltale scars of whip or wire. The whole atmosphere was one of serenity and quietude. This, thought Ren, was the way money was intended to be spent.
The keep of Castle Di Rode was built into the southeast extremity of the inner bailey. It held a commanding view over the Aprillo river and across the shipping lanes that connected with the inland waterways. The keep itself was no longer a simple structure. Later buildings along the walls of the inner bailey had crept around the base of the round-tower and risen to a height equal to the walls themselves. Thus the entrance to the keep was no longer gained by crossing a sterile courtyard, but rather through a delightfully random series of halls, libraries, galleries, corridors and sweeping staircases.
As Ren followed his young slave-caste guide he found himself, unaccountably at first, becoming increasingly discomforted. This feeling was in part associated with the increasing richness of the perfumes and incense with which the air was saturated, but this was only a factor—and not the prime cause of his unease. A gradual analysis of his feelings made him conscious of the fact that the rooms through which he passed were in a careful sequence of ascending extravagance and descending taste, and had already attained a level where the lavish dissipation of resources made nonsense both of the function and the intrinsic value of the items involved. This was so extreme a contrast with the exterior of the castle and the earlier rooms, that the only answer that suggested itself to Ren was that Di Rode, like Delph Di Guaard, was beset by advancing madness.
Ren’s senses protested the wrongness they recorded. When he reached the confines of the keep itself his feelings heightened to revulsion despite his efforts to contain them. Here was monumental waste with neither art nor comfort to commend it. Even the occasional alcoves were lit by candelabra mounted on the heads and shoulders of undraped slaves who stood with statuesque patience, performing a function no more important than could have been achieved by an iron pin driven into the wall.
This final debasement of living humanity caused Ren as acute a pain as he had experienced on seeing the degraded labor force at Castle Di Guaard. Profitable exploitation of others was a human weakness Ren could comprehend. To waste members of the species by forcing them to fill functions usually performed by inanimate objects was, in his view, irrational and completely indefensible. Fortunately he regained both his outward composure and his objectivity before he turned the final corner to come face-to-face with Krist Di Rode himself.
He needed all his resources to contain his amazement. He had been shown into a bare cell, whose stone walls were as stark and undressed as had been the human candelabra he had passed. A high, square window without glazing looked out only to the blankness of an empty sky, and the shaped wooden bench on which the Lord Di Rode reclined offered no possible aspect of comfort. The floor of stone flags was unrelieved by carpet and the ceilings of arched stone’ had neither light nor beauty.
Di Rode himself was also a shock to Ren. He had imagined an older, more sophisticated type of man, perhaps one trying to ward off old age by the frantic pursuit of new experience. Instead, he was’ confronted by a pallid figure of a man in his early thirties, with a face which epitomized dissipation and overindulgence yet still possessed an undeniable strength. Ren had the feeling that this curious lord had tried and become dissatisfied with almost every aesthetic and sensual experience known to man. The physical dissolution was manifest, but the evidence was that the intellectual and aesthetic interest was yet unquenched. While Di Rode’s face held a searching interest and unquestionable intelligence, it was obvious that unrestricted wealth, like absolute power, had wrought a remarkable corrosion on its owner.
With a trader’s acumen Ren had summarized this much of the man before he began to speak, subtly modifying
his arguments in order to stress aspects of Dion-daizan’s activities that might have an effect on Di Rode. The latter listened to him attentively, stopping him occasionally to query some chain of fact that led to Ren’s conclusions. Then he remained for a long period in contemplative thought.
‘To summarize, Agent Ren, you’ve presented an excellent case predicting what Dion’s policy might take away from me. But you’ve mentioned nothing about the loss of what I receive from Dion while I remain his friend.’
‘We have access to the resources of all the known universe,’ said Ren. ‘There’s nothing that Dion can supply that we can’t better. Nothing at all.’
‘Does that include understanding?’ Di Rode was quietly mocking. ‘Do you have access to .some cosmic source of that?’
The unexpectedness of the question fazed Ren momentarily. ‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Think about it. If you had an unrestricted opportunity to indulge whatever whims you chose—how long would it take you to destroy yourself?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Ren. ‘I’d at least have one hell of a fine time finding out.’
‘Spoken with all the complacency of one who’ll never have the opportunity! But what does a man need when he’s tasted everything, satiated every appetite and yielded to every conceivable temptation?’
Ren did not answer. The question was beyond the scope of his imagination.
Di Rode continued. ‘He needs understanding. He needs discipline. He needs a father-figure who can pick up the mess he’s become, squeeze out the rot and put back enough self-respect for the man to become a man again. That’s what Dion supplies to me—psychological rehabilitation. He picks up the pieces when I’ve torn myself apart and establishes new values to replace those I’ve lost. Do you have something better to offer as a replacement for Dion’s prowess with people?’
‘We have doctors—’
‘Doctors are for the sick,’ said Di Rode cuttingly. ‘I’m not sick—just unusually privileged. With Dion’s aid I can probably crowd the pleasures of a hundred lifetimes into one. So you see, Ren, there’s nothing you can offer me in exchange for my allegiance. Wizards don’t come in tonnage lots.’
Ren was about to make a reply when Di Rode got up from the bench and made as though to call a servant. The agent’s gaze did not follow the hedonistic lord, but remained fixed in fascination on the bench from which Di Rode had risen. He saw now for the first time that the entire surface was covered with upward-pointing metal spines, like a bed of nails. In an agony of realization his eyes traveled involuntarily to Di Rode’s back.
Krist Di Rode was watching his perplexity with some amusement. With a swift movement he dropped the single drape that covered his back and allowed Ren to examine his flesh. There were slight indentations from the pressure of the barbs, but otherwise the skin was undamaged. In contrast, however, the open weave of the drape had been severely cut. Ren looked again to the sharp spines of the couch and again back to Di Rode. By any normal reasoning, Di Rode’s back should have been lacerated to an extremely serious extent. Instead the young lord was laughing and the main discomfort was Ren’s.
‘Well, Agent Ren—do you still think you can do better than Dion-daizan?’
Ren shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He suspected, not for the first time, that he was fighting a battle quite impossible for him to win. With Dion’s influence removed, Delph Di Guaard would go berserk and Krist Di Rode would destroy himself. With such powerful nobility removed, the social structure of the three hills, undermined as it was, would slowly begin to disintegrate as surely as if the Imaiz were still pushing it. Dion-daizan had raised a social conscience and all the old forces of tradition would be hard-pressed to put that, evolving creature back to bed.
As Ren came to the square of the fruit market he could see Catuul Gras waiting for him on the steps of his office chambers. He hastened over and the scribe followed him to safety behind closed doors before he would reveal the nature of his his concern.
‘Something’s gone wrong.’ Catuul’s face was grave. ‘The list of slaves you gave us—it was incorrect.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We took the slaves whose names were on the list. It didn’t seem right, because most of them were well trusted and known to us. But even under pressure they gave us absolutely nothing. Most of them claimed never to have been with the Imaiz.’
‘Surely that’s no more than you’d have expected them to say?’
‘True. But on further examination we found their statements to be correct. Dr. Hardun has given us a list of our own sympathizers—and none of Dion’s men at all.’
‘Ridiculous!’
‘It’s all here.’ Catuul Gras laid a sheaf of papers on the table. ‘Check for yourself. No man on that list has ever spent more than thirty-six hours on Magda and most of them haven’t been there at all.’
Scowling, Ren reached for the microwave communicator and called the spaceport. Alek Hardun was a long time answering.
‘Tito? What’s eating you?’
‘What in hell are you trying to do, Alek? That list of slaves you sent was the diametric opposite of what it was supposed to represent.’
‘Now don’t run off the spool, Tito! You asked me to reconstruct histories for a selected group of slaves and to notify you of those who’d served bond with the Imaiz for a year or longer. That’s exactly what I’ve done.’
‘Correction. That’s exactly what you’ve not done.’ Catuul tells me no slave on that list has spent longer than two days in Magda.’
‘Hold it! That wasn’t an automatic computer printout you received. We verified that list before it went on transmission. There’s no possibility of an error in the data we sent you.’
‘Yet I’m assured the list is one hundred per cent wrong. What the hell’s going on?’
‘Let’s check first that you have the right list. Watch your computer terminal and I’ll give it to you again.’
Ren watched as the computer printout began to spit forth names. When it had finished, he compared it with the paper Catuul had given to him. ‘How’s that?’ asked Hardun.
‘It agrees with the first set exactly. There’s not an error in the pack.’
‘Yet you insist they’re not the names you want?’
‘The names you’ve given me are also on the select list of Pointed Tails least probable suspects.’
‘I see!’ Hardun was serious. ‘How many names appear on your list, Tito?’
‘Seventeen. You should know—you’ve transmitted it.’
‘Not on your life. My list contained seventeen names, but I transmitted only sixteen of them.’
‘What?’
‘I said sixteen, Tito. All of whom I can guarantee have been at Magda for at least three years and most much longer. If you’ve just received a list of seventeen names, there’s only one conclusion—the list you’re receiving is not the one I’m transmitting. Somebody else has access to your terminal line. They’re intercepting what I’m sending and substituting a list of their own.’
‘Damn!’ Ren considered the enormity of the prospect. Most of the Company’s business transactions were reported via his terminal to the spaceport computers for processing and onward transmission via the FTL radio links. The director’s reports on the state of the feud with Dion-daizan went out over the same channel, The thought of unauthorized access to the terminal linkage made his blood run cold. With a chill creeping up his spine,he turned the instrument off.
‘Can you spare me some linemen, Alek? My terminal is on a wired circuit with the spaceport. I can only assume it’s been tapped.’
‘Not only tapped,’ said Hardun. ‘I’d suspect that it’s being consistently monitored by an online computing complex compatible with that at the spaceport. The insertion of a substitute list at that juncture is no mean feat of technology. What the hell have they got up there at Magda?’
‘I wish I knew. All the signs now are that they’ve a modern tec
hnological workshop that can match anything we can produce. This has to put a new face on how we approach the attack on the Imaiz—but I’ll take the matter up with you personally. I don’t even trust this microwave voice link now.’
‘That’s wise,’ said Hardun. ‘But before I sign off I’ll read you the list of names you should have received.’
He did so. Ren copied them faithfully and handed the results to Catuul Gras. The scribe compared them with another list and shook his head concernedly.
‘The names you’ve given me match the list of slaves who’ve escaped in the last two days. We presume they’ve gone to Magda, though the evidence Isn’t clear. It would seem the devil has recalled his own.’
Finding the actual position of the line tap was difficult. Because Anharitte had no telephone and no electric services, the customary array of available poles was absent from the landscape. When Ren had decided to bring his office into the fruit market in Anharitte proper, he had found it necessary to arrange for his wire link with the spaceport to be laid across private land wherever he could purchase the goodwill. The line now took a circuitous route across roofs, under eaves, around gables and dormer windows, and generally progressed in a most unorthodox manner until it ran free of the town and came to the western slopes of Firsthill. From there it ran across the country on Company-owned poles parallel to the Provincial Route that skirted the spaceport.
Despite the apparent opportunity for interference with the line in the town itself it was, curiously enough, on one of the poles on the open stretch of road that the tap was eventually found. The line had been split and both ends coupled into a neat black cable that ran unobtrusively down the pole and disappeared deep into the sandy soil of the provincial plain. Attempts to trace the path of the unauthorized cable proved tiresome and expensive and they were finally abandoned. Its general direction was, as Ren had known it would be, toward Magda. The depth and security of its lodgment showed it to have been buried at about the same time as Ren’s own cable had been installed.
